Small communities hit especially hard by Iraq deaths

MCKEESPORT, Pa. – Across the nation, small towns are quietly bearing a disproportionate burden of war. Nearly half of the more than 3,100 U.S. military fatalities in Iraq have come from towns where fewer than 25,000 people live, according to an analysis by the Associated Press. One in five hailed from hometowns of less than 5,000.

Many of the hometowns of the war dead aren’t just small, they’re poor. The AP analysis found that nearly three-quarters of those killed in Iraq came from towns where the per capita income was below the national average. More than half came from towns where the percentage of people living in poverty topped the national average.

On a per capita basis, states with mostly rural populations have suffered the highest casualties in Iraq. Vermont, South Dakota, Alaska, North Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Delaware, Montana, Louisiana and Oregon top the list, the AP found.

There’s a “basic unfairness” about the number of troops dying in Iraq who are from rural areas, said William O’Hare, senior visiting fellow at the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey Institute, which examines rural issues.

Diminished opportunities are one factor in higher military enlistment rates in rural areas. From 1997 to 2003, 1.5 million rural workers lost their jobs because of changes in industries such as manufacturing that have traditionally employed rural workers, according to the Carsey Institute.

Rural communities are “being asked to pay a bigger price for this military adventure, if I can use that word, than their urban counterparts,” O’Hare said.

The struggle to make sense of a loved one’s death in Iraq hits with a special intensity in tight-knit, small towns.

“In a small community, even if you don’t know somebody’s name you at least know their face, you’ve seen them before, talked to them maybe,” said Chuck Bevington, whose 22-year-old brother, Allan, from Beaver Falls, Pa., died in Iraq after volunteering for a second tour. “A small community feels it a lot tighter because they’ve had more contact with each other.”

Even strangers come up and hug his mother, he said.

Allan Bevington, who enjoyed heavy metal music and loved to fish, decided to join the Army so he could get an education and support his country. Before his second deployment, Bevington purchased a 2002 cobalt blue Ford Mustang. Now, it sits in his brother’s driveway because neither he nor his mother have the heart to move it.

Death isn’t the only burden the war has visited on the nation’s small towns.

Entrepreneurs in many small communities have lost their businesses after deploying in the Guard and Reserves, said Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont. More federal dollars also are needed to ensure that returning troops have easy access to veterans health centers, he said.

“It’s an issue of fairness that these folks are willing to go over and fight wars and put their lives on the line and really back this country up the way they have … we owe it to them to live up to our obligation of benefits,” Tester said.

Another fairness issue, raised by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., is the Pentagon’s practice of transporting the remains of military personnel killed in Iraq only to the nearest major airport. Stupak said it “imposes a burden on the family and friends when they should instead receive our support.” He has introduced legislation to require the Department of Defense to deliver the remains to the military or civilian airport chosen by the family.

While support for the war in rural areas initially was high, there has been a sharp decline in the past three years. AP-Ipsos polls show that those in rural areas who said it was the right decision to go to war dropped from 73 percent in April 2004 to 39 percent now. In urban areas, support declined from 43 percent in 2004 to 30 percent now.

Marty Newell, chief operating officer of the Whitesburg, Ky.-based Center for Rural Strategies, said rural areas supported the war early on because so many of their young men and women were fighting it.

“The reason that support is dwindling now is the same reason that support would’ve been strong before, and that is that we know a lot more about it,” he said. “We know what the real costs are and we know what the real story is. … Every day there’s another small town that has one of their own come home less than whole, and there are a lot of small towns like that.”